


Write Your Name

by vociferocity



Category: Plebs (TV)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Gen, Marriage of Convenience, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-25 03:10:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2606249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vociferocity/pseuds/vociferocity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which keeping a baby is a little harder than expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Write Your Name

**Author's Note:**

  * For [paperclipbitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperclipbitch/gifts).



> happy yuletide!

The day after the whole Trojan Horse/Binny debacle, they're just sitting down to eat when someone knocks on the front door.

"Oh, what now?" Marcus says, getting up with a sigh. "Grumio, don't tell me, you nicked this food from the bins too and someone wants it back?"

"If they wanted it, they shouldn't've thrown it out," Grumio mutters, and Stylax swallows his mouthful with a pained grimace before dropping his spoon.

Marcus opens the door to Davus and his wife and Binny. All three of them are covered in bright green puke. It smells like dinner.

"Er," says Davus' wife sheepishly. "So it turns out maybe being parents isn't for us?"

"Shit," Marcus says. He should have just kept eating, or closed the door as soon as he saw who it was, but it's too late now. He can hear Grumio and Stylax coming over, and Grumio's delighted gasp would be hilarious in literally any other situation.

"Can I hold her?" Grumio asks, already reaching out for the puke-covered baby.

Davus' wife hands Binny over before Marcus can swat Grumio's hands away, and just like that they're dads again.

 

"Aw, cheer up, dude," Stylax says at work the next day, when Marcus still hasn't cheered up. "It's cool! We're gonna be great dads."

Aurelius cackles in the background, but Marcus is too gloomy to give a shit. Well, much of a shit.

"You'll see," Stylax continues, making a grand gesture. "Soon she'll be all grown up and we'll be chasing off boys, it'll be awesome."

"Awesome is not exactly how I'd - wait a minute, what boys?"

Stylax shrugs. "She's gonna be gorgeous, mate. With my bone structure, how could she not?"

"Yeah, not sure that's how that works," Marcus says. "But that's not the point. What I meant was: we're not letting her date! There are way too many creeps in Rome."

"Yeah, like you two," Aurelius cuts in.

"Shut up, you're the creep," Marcus says. It's not a great comeback, but he's having a rough day.

"I am not a creep," Aurelius says, looking highly offended.

"So you wouldn't date our gorgeous baby?" Stylax asks, looking just as offended.

"No, I would not date your gorgeous baby!" Aurelius cries.

"I'm sure it's very relieved to hear that, water boy," Flavia says, sweeping into the room. At this point, Marcus is pretty sure that Flavia just waits outside their office all day until Aurelius says something ridiculous.

"Water man," Aurelius mutters, but his heart's not in it.

"Better to be a boy than a man if you're going around calling babies gorgeous," Flavia points out. Aurelius looks like he wants to shrivel up and die.

"Stylax said it first," he whines. "I was just copying."

"Well, that's copier's job, isn't it," she says briskly. "So don't. Anyway, boys, it turns out the typo I found on the report earlier wasn't a typo after all, so you get to undo the re-do."

Stylax looks down in horror at the last copy of the old report in shreds on his desk. Marcus groans.

"And I sure hope that baby's registered," she smiles, crinkling her eyes up like she cares. "Ta ta!"

With that, she sweeps back out of the room.

There's a long pause, during which Marcus contemplates the vast amount of copying work still to be done, and Stylax sheepishly pushes the shreds of the actually fine after all report out of sight.

"So," Aurelius says, stretching out the word. "Is she registered?"

"Not actually our problem," Marcus says. "We're not going to keep her. Some other nice family will take her in, and this time they won't return her covered in vomit. Right, Stylax?"

Stylax continues to look sheepish. "I dunno," he says. "She's pretty cute. And Grumio really likes her, man. He'll lose his mind if we give her away again."

"We're not keeping her," Marcus says. "We don't have the room, or the money, and she's not registered, whatever that means."

Stylax brightens. "Once I start racing, we'll totally have the money!"

"You won't win a single race," Marcus predicts.

 

So of course, he's completely wrong. Stylax and Grumio go on a zany adventure together and track down the word that gets Peggy started, and suddenly they have the money to feed Binny something that's both actual food and also age-appropriate.

"Well, we still don't have the room. Davus didn't give us back the basket," Marcus grumbles, watching Grumio dangle a dead pigeon in Binny's face. The worst part is she loves it way more than Cynthia's stupid cat ever did; Binny stretches out her arms trying to grab it, and giggles non-stop. It's sickeningly cute.

"Course we have room," Grumio says. "Binny sleeps in my bed, I sleep in your bed -"

"Yeah, and for some reason, I'm not totally okay with that," Marcus cuts in.

"Not sure why," Grumio says. "I hardly snore."

"That's not why I - argh," Marcus says, the futility of arguing with his alien of a slave too much for him today.

"S'alright, guys," Stylax says. "Landlord's going to sell us a cot."

"Wicked," Grumio says.

"Um, not wicked," Marcus says. "Why does landlord have a cot?"

Stylax and Grumio shrug in unison, and Marcus wants to cry, just a little. On the floor, Binny starts crying, and Grumio and Stylax rush to her side, cooing and patting and Marcus possibly sheds a single frustrated tear. Nobody can prove it.

 

Flavia comes into their office on a slow work day and asks, "How's the baby?"

"You care about our child?" Marcus asks, baffled.

"I'm out of gossip," she shrugs. "Is it registered yet?"

"Oh shit," Marcus says, as Stylax yelps, "I knew we forgot something!"

Flavia rolls her eyes. "My dear idiots," she says. "You know there's a rather hefty fine for having an unregistered child, don't you?"

"Er," Marcus says. "Ye - es? Yes, of course we did? And that's why we were going to register her today, right after work?"

Flavia smirks, but leaves them in peace. And after work, just as promised, Stylax and Marcus traipse around some government buildings until they find the one that seems to be about babies.

"We need to register a child," Marcus tells the bored-looking receptionist.

"Sure," she drawls, not looking at him, and slides a form across the desk. "Fill this out."

There's a pen on the desk that mostly works, so they hunch over the form together and fill it out – well, Marcus fills it out. His handwriting is way neater than Stylax's, thanks to his terrible job. The questions are pretty easy, mostly things like "sex of child" and "name of child", but then they get to "parents of child" and have to stop and think.

"Um," Marcus says.

Stylax shrugs. "Just write 'the bins', I guess."

"I can't believe I even have to say this, but I'm not writing down that the bins are her parents," Marcus says. "I'll put you and Grumio, you're the ones who want her."

"Can slaves have babies?" Stylax asks. Marcus shrugs, and they both look at the receptionist.

She very carefully does not meet their eyes.

"Let's just put you and me," Marcus says eventually. "I'm not sure Grumio should be an official parent, and I can't write down all three of us."

Stylax shrugs again, and they finish off the form and hand it back to the receptionist.

"So you're the fathers of - Binny?" she asks, looking down at the form.

"Er, yes," Marcus says, trying to smile at her. "I suppose we are!"

"Married, then?"

Marcus laughs too-loudly into the resulting silence, but the receptionist doesn't join in.

"I think she's being serious," Stylax whispers.

"Um, no," Marcus says. "We're not married, and we don't...really...plan on getting married?"

She frowns. "Well, I'm going to need some kind of partnership identification. You can't both be the single parent of Benny."

"Binny," Stylax corrects.

"Whatever," she says. "Identification, please?"

"We don't have any," Marcus says. "We're not partners, we're just friends."

"Not good enough, I'm afraid," she says, a twinkle in her eye saying she's enjoying this a little too much. "Either one of you is the dad and you're just friends, or you're both dads and you get married here and now."

"Stylax is the dad," Marcus says, at exactly the same time that Stylax says, "Marcus is the dad."

"Hmm," she says. "This is starting to sound like some kind of scam. Tell me: is there even a child? Why would you call your daughter Binny"

"Well, we found her in the bins," Stylax explains.

The receptionist shakes her head. "Unlikely," she says. "This is almost definitely a scam. I'm afraid I can't register this fake child of yours."

"She's not fake!" Stylax says. "I promise she's real."

Marcus can see that they're not getting through to her.

"How much is the fine for an unregistered child?" he asks.

"More than the cost of a marriage license," she replies, which unfortunately does actually answer his question.  
"You can't be serious," Stylax says, half-smiling at Marcus, waiting for the punchline.

Marcus shrugs. "You're the one who wanted to be dads. It's this or give her up."

 

Five minutes later, ten denarii poorer, one more form filled out, and they're married.

"Oh, fuck," Stylax says dazedly as they're walking along the street. "I can't believe I'm _married_."

"I'm -"

"Think of all the women I won't be able to sleep with now," Stylax adds.

“Well -"

"Aurelius is going to  _lose his shit_ ," Stylax finishes mournfully.

"Will you let me  _finish_ ?" Marcus snaps.

Stylax looks at him. "Oh, no," he says. "You've already become a nagging wife."

Marcus narrows his eyes. "Excuse you," he says. "I'm a total catch."

"You don't have to tell me," Stylax says. "I'm the one who married you."

They laugh, but Marcus keeps thinking about it as they walk home, stopping at a stall to buy Binny another dead pigeon. It's true, Stylax  _did_ marry Marcus. That's more than Cynthia was ever going to do.

And honestly, Marcus realises, taking a second to check out Stylax, he could have done a lot worse.

 


End file.
